


Peruvian Whiskey

by metatiki (tklivory), tklivory



Series: Dragon Age: Spy Effect [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Blood and Injury, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Espionage, Flashbacks, Gay Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Major Character Injury, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:48:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tklivory/pseuds/metatiki, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tklivory/pseuds/tklivory
Summary: The stakes are high after Shepard recruits her former comrade Kaidan Alenko on a rescue mission. Aware that his chances of success are low if he goes in alone, Kaidan turns to his old partner Cullen Rutherford for support. Though they didn't part on the best of terms, they quickly find that they still work well together. Would it be enough?
Relationships: Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford, Kaidan Alenko & Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Cullen Rutherford
Series: Dragon Age: Spy Effect [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2066511
Comments: 10
Kudos: 5





	1. The Soldier: Meetings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redluna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redluna/gifts).



> This work is part 2 of the Dragon Age: Spy Effect series. You can find the first part [here.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21876937)

Kaidan pressed himself against the bulkhead of the ship, his service pistol raised and ready as he forced slow breaths through a wide open mouth. Silence was the key here, silence and praying that whoever was out there would make the first noise and give away their location. The dull pain in his side reminded him all too readily of _that_ particular lesson, and he couldn’t afford a follow-up.

Of course, listening for that noise was itself a challenge, given just how many noises there were in a hulk this size. The _Desirota_ hadn’t sailed the seven seas for over seven years, but it hadn’t been broken down into scrap metal yet, either. Instead, after the most valuable parts had been scavenged, the sections of the hulking carrier had been sent to a ship graveyard and left there. Not the most elegant end for the carrier, and one that drew all sorts of folk to use it for their own ends. Between the homeless, the drug dealers, and the smugglers, the detritus littered the ground enough so that even a single step would make a rustling noise, but that noise had to separated out from the multitude of metallic scraping and groaning sounds as the ship continued to settle in its place amidst the carcasses of its fellows. 

Still, if one paid enough attention…

The moment he heard a sound that didn’t belong to the ship, Kaidan pushed himself around the corner, aimed, and fired, all in one motion. A muffled oath followed by a hiss let him know he’d hit true, but he was already dashing through the darkness to a new location. Just in time, too, he noted, glancing back as a hail of bullets pierced the rusted wall where he’d been hiding.

Hitting the stairs at top speed, he ran down them at a breakneck pace with as much noise as he dared use to make the other person think he was _trying_ to be quiet and still have them hear him, then abruptly squeezed into the opening next to them that he’d found earlier while scouting the place. The space under the stairs was clearly intended for storage, but now it offered an unparalleled view of whoever followed him down the stairs.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, Kaidan pressed a hand to his side and then pulled it away to look at it. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when he saw the flow of blood had ebbed, even despite his physical exertion. Readying his pistol again, he eased himself back into the shadows and waited, hoping that his unseen foe would take the bait and chase him.

His patience was rewarded when he heard the approaching creak of footsteps. The gaps between the steps gave him a good view of his opponent as they moved down half the stairs. Raising his pistol, he aimed straight forward where he had the clearest shot, then swore silently when the feet paused just above his sweet spot. _Come on,_ he urged them. _Just a bit more._

They stepped down a couple more steps, bringing their torso down and closer to a spot where Kaidan could shoot them between the metal slats of the stairs. Just as they started to take that fateful step, however, a shockingly loud ring tone sounded in the darkness.

For a heart-stopping moment, Kaidan was afraid that it was his phone, but instead the person swore as their hand dove into a pocket of their vest. Pulling it out, they tapped the screen and said, “What is it? I’m busy.”

Kaidan’s heart sank down into his shoes. _Damn. It_ is _Shepard._ He’d been hoping against hope that the person he’d been tailing for months, always arriving just too late to stop them from taking out yet another of his brethren, was anyone _but_ the only person it could possibly be. After all, Shepard was one of the best.

Had been one of the best, anyway, before she left.

_God damnit, why?_

“Look, I know he’s here,” Shepard was saying into her phone. “I’ve almost got--Yes, ser. No, ser. No, please, I--” Shepard’s mouth snapped shut, and she bowed her head and listened as the other person screamed at her. Kaidan couldn’t make out the words, but he could hear the anger in the other person’s voice.

 _She sounds almost afraid,_ Kaidan noticed, brow furrowing. _But of what? She’s never afraid of anything._ They’d fought together through thick and thin in so many battles, especially during the war, that he couldn’t imagine her just...letting someone yell at her. _What the hell could scare her like this?_

Finally the shouting on the other end came to a stop, and Shepard said, “Yes, ser. I understand, ser. Trevelyan is next. No more distractions.”

Kaidan watched with a frown as he watched her end the call with a shaking finger, her shoulders slumping as she tucked the phone back into her pocket. In the next moment, however, she drew one hand back and smashed it into the wall next to her with a piercing shout, crumpling the rusty metal with the power of her enhanced metal glove. She still had her equipment, it seemed, and Spectre equipment was a cut above the rest.

So when she activated the silence mode on her armor, Kaidan noticed. It wasn’t for protection, the silence mode, but to stop anyone from being able to trace the Spectre using electronics. _Why use it now and not earlier?_

“This isn’t over,” she said in a low tone, then straightened her shoulders. “Kaidan?” she called, taking another step down.

Kaidan’s finger tightened as he aimed his gun. He could hurt her now, but it might be better to wait one more step to make sure he got her heart.

“I know you can hear me, Kaidan,” Shepard called. “I just want you to know that killing me isn’t the answer. The man who owns me will just find someone else.”

 _The man who owns you?_ Kaidan frowned, but his finger instinctively tightened its hold on the trigger as Shepard descended another step. When she came to a halt, he swallowed, unsure whether or not to shoot.

“Kaidan, I...Please, Kaidan,” Shepard said, her voice suddenly shaky. “Help me. He’s got Liara.”

A shock of ice went down Kaidan’s spine. _Liara._

“Just...I have to do what he says, Kaidan.” She buried her face in her hands. “I have to.”

For a long moment, the words hung in the air, until finally Kaidan cursed and tucked his pistol away. “You were almost dead there,” he said from the shadows beneath the stairs.

She jumped, her hands dropping as she leapt to the bottom of the stairs and squinted. He saw the glow of her reticule as it lit up, revealing what lay in the shadows, and she smiled. “Still the same Kaidan. You always were clever.”

“What’s this about, Shepard?” Kaidan asked grimly. “You’ve taken down ten Spectres in the last year alone. I can’t just ignore that--or my orders to stop you.”

“And I can’t ignore mine,” she said. “If I go anywhere near Liara, she dies.”

“Well, shit,” Kaidan muttered. “So you want _me_ to get her.”

“Get her out safely, and the first person I kill after that will be the one who took her,” she said grimly. “I promise.”

Kaidan put his hands on his hips as he looked her up and down, tossing it over in his mind. “You’re asking a lot of me, Shepard,” he said finally.

“You’re looking for the one responsible for all the dead Spectres, right? Well, I only got the last four. He sent out two others before who got killed,” she told him. “So like I said. Go ahead, kill me now, doom Liara to being his--” Her mouth twisted. “I can’t even say it. But if you do kill me, you’ll still be a target again some day. Or maybe he’ll make you replace me.”

Kaidan swore. “All right. Who is it?”

She swallowed. “Sovereign.”

“Fuck.” Kaidan punched one of his fists into his open palm. “That’s why you’re on silence. He’s tracking you.”

She nodded. “Yes. And I can use the excuse of trying to avoid getting noticed by you when he asks later, but I can’t stay long.”

Closing his eyes for a moment, Kaidan took a deep breath. “Understood. And your next target is?”

“Evelyn Trevelyan,” Shepard said. “Theoretically just the head of that accounting firm that caters to the rich. In reality, that's the financial firm that quietly reports their financial activities to Spectre. I can’t warn her, but…”

“But I can, to buy you time, I know.” Kaidan scrubbed his face with his hand. “She’s not a Spectre, though.”

“She’s the first non-Spectre I’m supposed to take out, yes,” Shepard said. “You were supposed to be my next target, but apparently it took too long to find you.”

He couldn’t help but smirk. “I was taught by the best.”

She smirked right back, but her expression immediately turned to sorrow. “I’m sorry to ask this of you, Kaidan, but--”

“No, no, I get it. I know how you feel about Liara,” Kaidan told her. “I’ll do what I can. I promise. Any idea on where she is?”

Shepard shook her head. “No. I just know she’s not in Sovereign’s former base. That’s still empty after we took him out two years ago.” Her lips pressed together. “Took out _most_ of him, anyway.”

“Well, _someone_ found that part we couldn’t track down and found it a new home. Someone with resources,” Kaidan mused. “All right. I’ll get on it. But if Trevelyan turns up dead…”

Shepard hung her head. “I know. Just...please. Hurry. I can’t afford to look like I’m not trying.”

Kaidan nodded. “Go on. I have enough information for now.”

In a flash, she turned and was running full tilt, trying to make up enough time so that her length of silence wouldn’t look suspicious to Sovereign. Once she was out of sight, Kaidan sagged into the stairs and buried his head in his hands for a few moments, then shook his head and rose again. “I don’t have time for this.”

Still, before he could even start on the task Shepard had put before him, he had something important to take care of first.

* * *

“I thought I told you to stop letting yourself get perforated,” Dr. Chakwas said in an amused tone as she patiently probed his wound.

“You know me, doc,” Kaidan said with a strained chuckle. “Can’t go a week without seeing you.”

“I’d prefer a phone call to an office visit, honestly,” she said. “Surely you remember how to operate one?”

“Most of the time,” Kaidan said. “Unless I need to-- Ah!”

Chakwas turned the bullet she’d extracted over so she could get a good look at it before she dropped it into a metal tray. “Spectre issue armor piercing bullet,” she noted. “You’re lucky you still have two kidneys.”

“I got the new reinforced armor when I was assigned this mission,” Kaidan explained. “One of the first to field test it.”

“Hmm. Well, when the tech gets stolen and new bullets are made to pierce it more efficiently, let me know,” she said as she grabbed the alcohol and large swabs. “At least the wound is cauterized.”

He hissed as she began to swab his skin with the alcohol, watching as she alternated between swabbed alcohol and tweezers to remove the fibers of his armor with the aid of a special magnifying headset. “At least they didn’t use exploding ammo,” he gritted.

“I daresay we wouldn’t be talking right now if they did.” Chakwas glanced up at them. “So you still don’t know who it is?”

“We were playing tag and duck duck goose in the old carrier in the graveyard,” he told Chakwas, not quite lying but also not telling the truth. “Lots of shooting around corners. We both got lucky, though, otherwise they wouldn’t have ran from me.”

“Pity. I’m worried about this assignment, Major.” She pulled a particularly long fiber from his side, then poked and prodded until she set the bloodied tweezers down and retrieved a large syringe. “This will sting.”

Kaidan braced himself as she flushed his wound, then breathed out slowly as she sewed it shut. “I’m starting to wish I’d taken you up on your offer,” he muttered.

“You’re the one who said that painkillers would only slow you down,” she said. “And I’m afraid to give you more lidocaine after what happened last time.”

“It was only the one time,” he said a bit sheepishly.

“Ripping your stitches open because you can’t feel them is a very good reason to make sure you bloody well know they’re there,” she countered. “Now hush. I need to concentrate.”

Kaidan fell silent and looked around the clinic. “You’re doing well.”

“People know me now,” she said. “And because of my side work for the Spectres, I get better funding than most clinics since the war. I am looking for an assistant, though. If you run across any likely prospects, send them my way.”

“I’ll do that,” Kaidan promised, then hissed as she tugged the last stitch into place.

“There. Let me bandage it.” As she worked to layer the wound, she added, “Now, _don’t_ do anything too drastic until at least tomorrow. I don’t want to see you again for at least another week. And if by some miracle it’s longer than that, call me. I wouldn’t want to wonder what happened.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry, Dr. Chakwas. I remember how to use a phone, too.”

Once he’d left the clinic, however, the reality of the situation slammed back home. He’d been mulling over how to approach the favor Shepard had asked for, trying to figure out how to do it. The problem was that Sovereign had a way of evading most monitoring systems, and if he’d returned without the Spectres knowing about it, that probably meant he’d already compromised the Spectre network. That also meant Kaidan couldn’t use his Spectre credentials to look for information on any network, even non-Spectre ones, without potentially alerting Sovereign that the jig was up, and if he did that…

Kaidan grimaced. He couldn’t risk something happening to Liara.

 _I need help,_ he realized as he eased himself into his ramshackle-looking trailer, nondescript among a number of similar looking trailers on the beach. Of course, none of the others had the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment installed in them to make them essentially an impregnable bunker, but Kaidan had always preferred function over form. Once inside, he absently tapped on the security button, and immediately the silence shields snapped into place around his perimeter. _But who? Another Spectre would have the same problem. Anyone official would. So I’ll need someone unofficial._

Still mulling over the problem, he went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge. Distractedly he popped the top off and moved to stand at his window, staring blankly at the moonlit waves beyond as he mentally worked his way through the possibilities.

It was only after he’d finished the first bottle and had retrieved the second one that a nagging thought arose from the depths of his memories and tapped insistently for attention from his slightly tipsy mind. With a frown, Kaidan popped the bottle open and then hurried to his office. It took a couple of minutes to access his carefully hidden lockbox, and few more to open it since it had been so long that he’d almost forgotten the trick. Once it was open, though, he pulled out the contents and considered them carefully.

Setting them on the table, he grabbed his beer and started pacing around his office, glancing at the desk in between swigs of beer. By the time the second bottle was empty, he decided that it was probably the best option.

“If he doesn’t kill me first,” he muttered under his breath.

Still, he needed a bit more help before he made the call. Moving to the desk, he set the empty bottle on the desk and took the old phone in hand. With a practiced deftness, he inserted the card and then plugged in the charger, knowing there was no way it would have any power after so long. Still, the shadow account hidden behind a pseudonym paid for by an untraceable credit card would have made sure that the phone was still active...hopefully.

With a sigh, he went to retrieve yet another beer, then prowled the office again, draining the bottle as he waited for the light to indicate that it had enough power to finally use. When it suddenly buzzed and vibrated, he choked on the mouthful of beer in his mouth, barely avoiding a spitting incident. 

Thunking the beer down on the desk next to the other empty bottle, he swept the phone up in his hand and saw that there was a text waiting for him. Swallowing harshly, he flipped the phone open and pressed the button with a trembling finger.

The words popped up, emotionless and eye-piercing with the unforgiving font and horrid backlight, but still legible: _“I’m sorry, Kaid. I don’t think I can do this.”_

Kaidan stared at the words, not even realizing that tears had risen before his sight blurred. Blinking quickly, he cleared his throat and sat down heavily in the chair, staring at the words until they burned themselves into his mind. “Oh, God,” he whispered in a choked voice, then sniffed and rubbed his face. “When--” His eyes widened as he finally noticed the date and did some calculations. “Six months after we-- Oh, God.” Three years ago, but still…

Wiping his face, he retrieved the beer and drained the rest of it in one gulp, then took a deep breath and centered himself. Tapping the redial button, he put the phone to his ear, muttering, “Please be there. God, just...be there.”

Each ring on the other end made his heart squeeze tighter and tighter, and when the voicemail picked up--with the same voicemail he remembered from what seemed ages ago--he squeezed his eyes shut. In the next moment, though, the message was interrupted, and a harsh voice spoke. “Hello?”

Caught by surprise, Kaidan’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times, scrambling for words. “Uh--”

“Look, don’t waste my time, all right? Who is this? I hear you breathing.”

Kaidan almost laughed, knowing that he had, indeed, never appreciated anyone wasting his time. “Hey,” he said finally. “It’s me. Kaid.” Now it was Kaidan’s turn to listen to breathing, to the shift as it went from impatient to surprise to something else entirely. Closing his eyes, Kaidan added, “I need your help.”

“Well, shit.” There was a heavy sigh, and then he heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. “All right. I’m listening.”

Kaidan leaned back in his own chair, taking a deep breath as he tried to sound casual. He was all too aware about the capabilities of who he was up against, after all. “Not over the line. Too impersonal. We should meet in person. How about the seventh, at the old hotel with the oak tree?”

A long silence met the words, and Kaidan licked his lips, hoping the code wasn’t _too_ subtle. “Sounds good. Meet you there at, say, high noon?”

 _Two hours._ It’d be a rush, but doable. “Great. I’ll see if I can get you any of that maple beer you like so much.”

“Better make it that Peruvian whiskey,” the man said in a teasing tone. “To make up for waking me.”

“Right, right.” _Full security protocols, then._ “Don’t worry, I know where to score some. See you next month.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” And the line went dead.

With an explosive breath, Kaidan let the phone drop from nerveless fingers and went limp. _He hasn’t changed one bit._ At the thought, a smile came to his lips. 

_Good._


	2. The Assassin: Memories

These were the moments he lived for.

_Their hands entwined above Dorian’s head, his lover’s breath hot in the crook of his neck, strong legs wrapped around his waist to pull him close, his hips thrusting with a single-minded determination…_

These were the moments he lived for.

_The soft creak of the bed as it rocked back and forth, the sound of his name panted out in regular intervals, the whir of the fan in the corner of the room as it sent cool air over their heated skins, the wet slap of his cock as it plunged deep over and over again…_

These were the moments he lived for.

_The sight of Dorian’s flushed cheeks in the dim light, the raw display of his tousled hair and mussed mustache, the chaos of clothes strewn about the room in a frenzy of removal, the very visible red and needy erection between their stomachs…_

These were the moments he lived for.

_When Dorian’s moans and gasps filled his ears, he could forget the sound of gunfire and screams. When he seized Dorian’s lips to devour them, he could forget the taste of blood and worse. When his fingers tightened and clenched around Dorian’s hands or wrists, he could forget those who had died, choking and in agony, in his grasp. And when his hips thrust deep and locked in place as bliss washed over him and Dorian cried out with his own release, he could forget the horrors and terror from his past and concentrate wholly, and solely, on the man beneath him on the bed._

_Yes._ These were the moments he lived for.

While they lay panting in the near darkness, the breeze from the fan washed over them, sending a shiver down Cullen’s spine as it cooled the sweat on his bare skin. Not yet pulling out, Cullen once more took Dorian’s lips with his own, rolling his hips as he enjoyed the intimacy of the moment. Eventually they would need to separate, eventually they would need to return to the real world and the real problems which awaited them.

For now, though, the universe consisted of just the two of them, their hearts beating as one.

Into this perfection, the harsh jangling of the ring of a cell phone intruded, jerking them away from the perfection of lingering kisses back into a world where perfection had a very limited reach. Cullen listened to the ringing for a moment, then swore softly and gently disengaged.

“Must you?” Dorian murmured, though Cullen noticed that sleep already threatened him.

“It’s my business phone,” he told Dorian, knowing he’d understand. He didn’t dare ignore it, not if it meant Hawke might be in danger. He owed the man too much to ignore what might be a call to arms.

 _This had better be good,_ he fumed, knowing that Hawke knew precisely where he was and what they were likely doing. Stumbling over to where his pants had somehow ended up on top of the cat tree, Cullen pulled the phone out and tapped the button without really looking at the screen. “Hello?” 

There was no immediate answer aside from a couple of quick breaths, followed by an uncertain little hum of a sound. Still, it was enough to let him know that it wasn’t Hawke.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, don’t waste my time, all right?” he said irritably. “Who is this? I hear you breathing.”

After another hesitation, a familiar voice replied. “Hey. It’s me. Kaid.”

Cullen felt as if someone had punched him hard in the chest, and it took him a while to be able to summon any sort of an answer. Memories burst through his mind in a flood, escaping the tightly locked box into which he’d stuffed them so long ago. As he tried to parse through them and push them into something resembling order in his mind, Kaidan added, “I need your help.”

 _And where were you when I needed help?_

“Well, shit.” It was a gut reaction, completely emotional, completely wrong, and completely difficult to unfeel once felt. Forcing himself to expel as much of the negativity as he could manage through a heavy sigh, Cullen reached behind him blindly and found a chair, dragging it closer to him so he could sag into it. His mind whirled as he tried to analyze Kaidan’s words, to remember the nuances and subtleties unique to the man. Finally he said, “All right. I’m listening.”

“Not over the line,” Kaidan said, almost as if it didn’t matter, but Cullen swore internally. _That bad._ “Too impersonal. We should meet in person.” As Cullen conjured up and discarded a series of possibilities, Kaidan added, “How about the seventh, at the old hotel with the oak tree?”

Cullen’s heart froze. _Shepard. She’s in trouble._ Mouth suddenly dry, Cullen desperately tried to remember what the rest of the code meant. _Hotel, oak tree… Right. The abandoned mine in that nature reserve where we took down that human supremacist cult._ After glancing at the clock on the wall, he said, “Sounds good. Meet you there at, say, high noon?” That should give them both enough time to get out there without having a chance to prepare anything sinister. After all, they hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms.

“Great,” Kaidan replied, sounding commendably cheerful. “I’ll see if I can get you any of that maple beer you like so much.”

 _Hmm. Good question. Will I be followed?_ It wasn’t unheard of in his line of work, after all, and since the last mission they’d taken involved the Qunari… “Better make it that Peruvian whiskey,” he said. “To make up for waking me.”

“Right, right,” Kaidan said with an easy laugh. “Don’t worry, I know where to score some. See you next month, then.”

Cullen relaxed. _Kaidan knew what he was doing._ In his more logical moments, Cullen knew that had always been true, even when it had hurt Cullen so very badly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Before Kaidan could respond to that, Cullen ended the call, staring at the phone for a long moment. The number was the same phone he’d sent to Kaidan, all right, mailed in a fit of depression-fueled pique in a desperate bid to make the man come back.

And it felt so very long ago, now.

Still, he didn’t have a lot of time. Two hours to get to the Four Nugs Nature Reserve wasn’t much, especially if he needed to tamp down the electronics and signals on his car. But first…

He moved to the bed where the apparently slumbering Dorian lay, and placed a light kiss on his forehead. Part of him hated the fact that he wouldn’t be able to nestle in close and slumber next to Dorian, but it was better to keep this part of his life separate.

“That didn’t sound like Hawke,” Dorian murmured, one eye cracking open to look at him.

Suppressing a wince, Cullen said, “No. Not Hawke. An old business partner. We used to team up on the really difficult jobs.”

Dorian reached up to cup the side of Cullen’s face. “You don’t mean someone like Hawke, do you?”

“No.” Cullen’s jaw rippled. “No, this is...older. When I was...officially unofficial, instead of completely unofficial.”

“I feel like I should be worried,” Dorian noted.

 _Very._ “I’ll be fine,” Cullen assured him. “It’s a new mission, though. I’m not sure when I’ll see you again.”

Dorian sighed, but said nothing--mostly because he didn’t want to fight before Cullen left than for any other reason, Cullen suspected.

“I’m sorry,” Cullen said softly. “I know I said I’d be here for another day or two, but I can’t ignore this.”

“I understand. That it’s important to you, anyway.” Dorian shifted so that he could raise himself higher. “I won’t demand you come back soon, but...come back to me. Please.” His grey eyes, luminous in the moonlight sifting in through the blinds, flicked down to Cullen’s lips, then back up to meet his gaze. “Our first anniversary is coming up, after all.”

That made Cullen smile. “I hadn’t forgotten,” he murmured. “But yes, that much I can promise you. I _will_ come back to you.”

“Good,” Dorian breathed, pulling Cullen’s face down into a slow, deep kiss. When their lips parted, he said, “Until later, then.”

“Until later.” Cullen smiled and stroked Dorian’s cheek, then pulled back and gathered his clothes. A quick wash, a quick change, and a quick refitting of his car later, and he was on the road, adrift in an emotional sea of regret, wistful longing, and tingling anticipation.

After all, time spent with Kaidan was _never_ boring.

* * *

About twenty minutes away from Dorian’s place, long enough that it would be difficult to associate him with it, he tapped his phone into life again. He _did_ have one important call to make before meeting Kaidan, after all. “Hawke,” he told the phone, and it obediently found the number and dialed.

Cullen waited, counting through the rings with increasing irritation. _Ten rings. Why is his phone set to ten rings before going to voicemail?_ As the ninth ring passed and he had mentally assembled the message he was going to leave, however, the phone abruptly picked up, and he heard a sleep-slurred voice say, “Hey. Wasn’t expecting you to call.”

“I wasn’t expecting to…” Cullen’s voice trailed away as he frowned, tilting his head as he strove to hear the faint sounds in the background on Hawke’s side. That sounded like-- “Are you watching _porn?”_ Cullen asked with a groan.

“Oh, yeah,” Hawke said, obviously grinning. “Want me to turn it up?”

“No, I--” Cullen swore as the forced moaning and sounds of flesh slapping wetly into each other grew louder, and scowled at the phone. _At least this isn’t a video call._ “Shut it off,” he said between grated teeth.

“Sure thing, boss,” Hawke said with a chuckle, and the sounds cut off with blessed suddenness. “All right, what’s up?”

“Why are you watching porn?” Cullen demanded, distracted for the moment.

“Because Isabela’s not here and there’s a beautiful woman sleeping down the hall who I was stupid enough to kiss and smart enough to send to her bed without me,” Hawke said with a groan and a thump, as if he’d thrown himself back on the bed.

“Adaar?” Cullen asked with a grin of his own. “I thought she was a client.”

“She is,” Hawke said sourly.

Cullen’s grin widened. “And you told me--”

Joining in, Hawke chanted, “--to never sleep with clients. I know _._ _Maker,_ do I know. But she’s so damn fucking gorgeous _._ And she’s smart, and she’s got these muscles, and just… _Unf._ Well. Varric’s coming to pick her up soon, so I’ll be able to watch porn in peace until Isabela gets back and we can scratch each other’s itches a few times.”

“Or maybe she’ll finally find the love of her life on this mission,” Cullen suggested lightly.

“She’s about as likely to settle down as I am,” Hawke retorted. “Anyway. You didn’t call to hear me bitch about my sexual frustration. Unless you did, in which case I can take matters into my own hand while we--”

“Ah, that’s not necessary,” Cullen said hastily. “I just wanted to tell you that it might be a few days before I return. Longer than I expected, anyway.”

Hawke grunted. “Want to fuck your boyfriend a few more times before coming back? Haven’t christened every inch of his apartment yet, huh?”

Cullen glared at the phone, knowing that they _had_ in fact ‘christened’ every inch of the apartment, and knowing that if he said so, Hawke would never let him hear the end of it. “It’s been a while since I’ve had more than a night with him,” he replied instead, letting Hawke continue with his initial assumption. The truth wasn’t something he felt comfortable discussing over a cellular line, even one as encrypted as this one was. “I’ll give you another call before I head back, just in case you’re in the middle of an orgy or something.”

“You do that,” Hawke said. “Never rule out anything with me, especially an orgy. I even got you into one once, remem--”

“Yes, well,” Cullen said, interrupting Hawke hastily. “Good luck with Adaar and Varric and all that.”

“Thanks,” Hawke drawled. “Hmm. Maybe I can convince _them_ to join me for an or--”

Cullen hastily disconnected the call, then tapped a different part of the screen to make the phone go offline. He spent a few minutes checking each and every signal in his car again, making sure nothing could be traced, then took the first exit off the freeway and drove down a side street. Pulling to the side, he turned off his lights and waited, hunkering down in the seat to make sure no one was following him. After ten minutes, he turned the car on again, left the lights off, and eased back into motion, flicking the switch that would kill the brake lights as well.

He had a schedule to keep, after all.

* * *

Five minutes before they were due to meet, Cullen’s car pulled into an overgrown grove of trees, ignoring the scraping sound of some of the lower branches as they scraped the top of his car. He drove a car that looked like a beater and ran silent as a Rolls for a reason, after all. Reaching into the console, he pulled out his old service pistol, beaten and scratched, but still in perfect working condition.

Exactly like him.

Slowly he tugged the handle on the door so he could slip out of the car noiselessly, listening to the area around him for any sound that shouldn’t be there. Raising his pistol up, he worked his way slowly through the grove, senses on alert as he carefully timed his steps so that they blended in with the wind and the creaking of the branches.

Outside the grove, he saw the entrance to the mine where they were to meet, ignoring the large sign warning of danger. He reached up to activate his reticule so he could spend a few moments looking for anything out of place, aware that he was not the only one who might be followed here. When he found nothing more suspicious than an owl watching him from one of the trees, he made his way to the gaping dark maw and slipped inside. 

He found a perfect place to wait for Kaidan a few dozen paces inside, a small space with a half-broken door that had once been used by the security guard to check people in and out of the mine. He still remembered the fight against the Cerberus operatives here, and the laboratory they’d found afterwards…

Shuddering, he pressed against the wall and waited, listening for the slightest step out of place or even a whisper of a breeze that didn’t belong…

...which made the sound of a chuckle behind him as something cold pressed to the back of his neck even _worse._

“Cheater,” he said as he slowly lowered his pistol. “You know I don’t have the silence.”

“You really think I’m not going to use my _one_ advantage over you?” Kaidan asked in a wry tone. “You may be the only Unseen Hand I ever worked with, but you definitely showed me that rumor, for once, underestimated the reality.”

Cullen snorted, though the compliment _was_ flattering, considering it was a Spectre who gave it. “Except when you have a device that can practically erase you from existence for a while.”

“Never long enough for a mission, and it takes a hell of a long time to recharge,” Kaidan said, lowering his weapon. As Cullen turned, they both tucked their guns out of sight, and Cullen examined Kaidan through his reticule. Unsurprisingly, the man looked older, but not as much older as Cullen knew he himself looked. The still-handsome face stayed neutral as he, in return, studied Cullen, until finally he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. “You probably want to know why I called you.”

“I don’t see Shepard with you,” Cullen noted.

“No. No, she, uh…” Kaidan sighed, then gestured down the corridor. “The kitchen is a bit more clean than this room, and I brought beer.”

“Not Peruvian whiskey?” Cullen asked with a faint grin as he pushed away from the wall and moved into the corridor. 

Kaidan laughed as he fell into step near, but not too near, Cullen. “God, no. You know how expensive that is? Special occasions only.”

“I remember. Shepard and I had to go in together to get you just that one bottle she brought you while you were recovering after the Cerberus mission," Cullen admitted.

“She mentioned that,” Kaidan mused. “I wish you could have been there to visit with her.”

 _We both know why I couldn’t._ “That would have been nice,” Cullen said instead, heading to where a door had some light leaking through. “Secure space?”

“As secure as I can make it,” Kaidan said. “For about an hour, anyway.”

 _Fuck, Kaidan, what is this about?_ Cullen wondered. If even a _Spectre_ couldn’t guarantee more than an hour… “Sounds good. That always used to be long enough in the old days.”

Kaidan shot him a cocky grin. “Not for _everything.”_

Maker, the man could _still_ make him blush. “Let’s talk,” he said gruffly, hoping the darkness hid the color--and knowing that Kaidan likely had a reticule of his own that could map body heat, just like he could. 

As he walked through the door, however, his reticule flickered and died, reassuring Cullen that the security barrier remained intact. Moving to the small table where a beer sat, invitingly open, he picked it up and turned to face Kaidan. “All right. What’s going on?”

“Shepard’s wife got kidnapped,” Kaidan said, wasting no words as he retrieved his beer. 

“Wha-- _kidnapped?”_ Cullen repeated, stunned. If _anyone’s_ spouse could be kept safe, he would assume it was Shepard’s. “How--Never mind that. _Who_ would be that stupid?”

“Someone who wanted the best of the best to be their assassin for their last push to world dominance,” Kaidan said with a grimace. “Sovereign.”

Cullen blinked. He’d been braced for almost any other answer, up to and including the Divine, but this… “I thought he died two years ago. Well…was rendered permanently defunct, since he can’t die like a normal person.”

“He was. Or so we thought at the time,” Kaidan said grimly. “It was the last mission Shepard and I worked on together before she retired to a private life. Apparently he managed to put enough of himself offsite that someone figured out how to revive him.”

“The Qunari, I bet,” Cullen muttered. “They’ve been pushing a lot of money through various secondary channels to their city-state up in Par Vollen. It wouldn’t surprise me, since they’ve been looking for another leader ever since I took down the Arishok and his cohorts.”

“Or paid enough money to the right black market vendor to get what might have looked like junk data but turned out to be Sovereign’s archive,” Kaidan pointed out. “For all their oddities, the Qunari are just as advanced technologically as we are. More, even, in some regards.”

“Not a bad theory. For all their disdain for people who don’t follow their creed, I know for a fact they’ve gone to at least the Shadow Broker in the past,” Cullen mused. “And if anyone could have gotten a hold of Sovereign’s archive, even if by accident, it would be the Broker.”

Kaidan’s face went bleak. “Damn. I should have thought of that. But how did _you_ know about the money part of it? That’s something that Spectre Bau was only beginning to trace over the last few months, and he was using Spectre resources.”

Cullen paused, realizing that he might be saying more than was safe for Dorian. After mulling over it a few moments, he said, “I know someone who works for one of those accounting firms that specializes in managing the portfolios for very rich clients.” _Among other things,_ of course. Cullen had his own suspicions about Trevelyan by this point, especially once he’d investigated her husband’s past a bit. “He mentioned something about how there was an increase in attempts to get those clients to invest a lot of money into a series of projects that on the surface looked legitimate with a solid return, but when the firm did some digging turned out to be a front for the Qunari.”

“Over the last year?” Kaidan asked, brow drawn in thought.

“The last eight months, give or take a couple of weeks.” He examined Kaidan’s troubled expression. “That about when Sovereign reappeared?”

Kaidan hesitated, as if pondering what to tell Cullen, then finally nodded. “That’s about when Spectre agents started to get killed, yeah. About four months ago I was assigned to hunt down the assassin that had been taking them down after the first Spectre assigned was, well--”

“Assassinated?”

“Yes.” Kaidan took a long drink. “And a few hours ago, I found her.” 

“Well, shit,” Cullen said fervently. “You’re right. She wouldn’t kill unless she was certain Liara was alive but in danger. So what’s Sovereign’s game?”

“Kill the Spectres first, I’d imagine, since we were the ones to deactivate him before,” Kaidan said with a grunt. “All of the ones who worked on that mission are dead except me and Shepard, and we were playing cat and mouse in the ship graveyard when she got new orders--which is how I know all this.”

Cullen raised an eyebrow. “You talked?”

“That silence _does_ come in handy. Just not for very long,” Kaidan said with a sigh. “But yeah. I have a name for the next target. Based on who it is, I’m guessing he’s going to go after the people who might figure out what he’s up to next.”

“Yeah? What’s the name?”

“Trevelyan. Evelyn Trevelyan.” A chill shot through Cullen’s body as Kaidan continued. “According to Spectre files, she’s the head of an accounting firm, but also more. She’s one of five people suspected to either associate with or be the Shadow Broker.”

 _Damn I’m good._ He _knew_ there was more to Trevelyan than just an accounting firm. _But is it her or Bull?_ “Guess who runs that accounting firm I just mentioned?” Cullen asked.

Kaidan blinked. “You know her? Well, that simplifies things somewhat. Having a trusted vector to approach her through will help.”

It definitely would, but now a new worry came to Cullen. After all, Dorian was quite close to his boss. All of Trevelyan’s firm were close friends, since Trevelyan encouraged everyone to think of each other as family. “To tell her she needs to go underground before Shepard comes for her?”

“And get her away safe. There’s a couple of places we can take her, and any of her family and friends who could be used as leverage against her, but I would have had to establish contact first--and you know how hard that is to do without a point of trust for that initial contact.” A wry smile came to his face. “Calling someone out of the blue about how they’re now a target of assassination by a retired Spectre agent under control of a supposedly dead AI backed by an nation-sized cult might be a bit hard to swallow.”

“You’re going to need a bigger bunker, though,” Cullen told Kaidan, even as his own mind turned over the possibilities.

“Oh? Why is that?” Kaidan asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Because she has a pretty big _family._ And I’m not talking about her husband and children, either.”

Kaidan frowned. “That complicates things,” he admitted.

“I...may have an idea, though,” Cullen said slowly as the kernel of an idea started to bloom in his mind. “If we do this right, it won’t even look like they’re hiding away.”

“That would be nice,” Kaidan said, then glanced at his watch. “Forty minutes. Make it good.”

With a nod, Cullen drained his beer, then absently pulled out an alcohol wipe and began to clean the bottle of any traces of him. “It starts with a woman by the name of Maevaris Tilani.”

“The heiress?” Kaidan asked, then grunted as he finished his own beer and pulled out a similar cloth. “I can’t wait to hear how this is going to work.”

Even as Cullen laid out his plan, though, the worry he kept trying to push to the back of his mind kept returning: was it really just Trevelyan, or were all her accountants--including Dorian--already in danger?

Because there was one thing of which Cullen was absolutely certain: he would keep Dorian safe, or die trying.


	3. The Soldier: Fallen Comrade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: gunshot wound

Kaidan heard the beep of warning in his earpiece and moved without stopping to question it, his hand wrapping around Cullen’s gun belt as his body went limp. Cullen cursed as the maneuver dragged them both to the ground, then fell silent when a cluster of bullets struck the head-height on the tree he’d been standing near. “Fuck. Missed one.”

“Maybe, or maybe they deployed new units to chase after us,” Kaidan replied. He saw Cullen give him a mock glare for stating the obvious, and gave him a wink in return before bringing up his HUD so he could scan their surroundings. “Yeah, it’s new. They must have finally noticed intruders.”

“Well, thankfully we’re already on our way out,” Cullen said. “At least it’s a race and not an infiltration gone wrong.” Pulling out his service pistol, he quickly popped off the magazine and snapped in one of his special expanded ones, then twisted off the silencer. “I guess we don’t need to worry about stealth anymore. Which direction is your van?”

“North by northeast from here,” Kaidan said, pointing even as he tugged out his own service rifle, though it was somewhat more sizable than Cullen’s more modest weapon. “Hopefully they just stick with drones,” he said. “The Qunari have some decent snipers in their ranks, but I'd rather not have to deal with any.”

Cullen snorted as he primed his pistol, eyes unfocusing for a moment as he checked his own HUD. “One of their most top secret installations and you think they won’t have some of their best positioned here? We’d best plan on it. Trees, weaving, ducking, whatever we need. I’m just glad I had time to reinforce the armor on your van before we came out here.”

“Me, too.” Kaidan took a deep breath. “All right, they’re about to reach that ridge. We should break for it then.”

“Right.” Cullen shifted his position, obviously readying himself for a sprint. "In three… two… _now!”_ As Cullen launched himself forward, Kaidan followed hot on his heels, leaving behind the small grove of trees they’d ducked into to wait for a shift in the patrol patterns. That shift wouldn’t happen now that they’d been discovered, after all, but if they could just stay ahead of the drones…

Their movements weren’t in concert, of course. They’d been in similar situations before and both understood that two erratically moving targets were much more difficult to hit than two moving in concert. The algorithm that he’d developed years ago to help him with the seemingly random movements uncoiled in his mind, allowing his body to move on automatic as he reached up to pat the payload in his pocket to make sure it was still there. Tiny but priceless, he breathed an internal sigh of relief when he felt the bulge.

As his hand dropped, however, he felt something punch him in the back of one shoulder, sending him tumbling to the ground. With a curse, he let the momentum roll him a couple of times before using it to rise to his feet again. “Guess those snipers _are_ here,” he muttered under his breath. Tucking his now numb arm against his side, he kept running, grateful that they were less than a hundred meters from the van, which he prayed had remained undiscovered.

By the time he arrived, he saw Cullen already pulling the Spectre-issue tarp from the vehicle. “Don’t leave that behind,” he yelled at Cullen as the man started to toss it aside. “Can’t let them study it!”

Cullen swore, then rolled it into a ball as well as he could and opened the passenger door to shove it in. “Get in, I’ll drive.” As Kaidan nodded and started to get into the van, however, Cullen suddenly shoved him aside. “Incoming!”

Kaidan was close enough to see the explosion of blood from Cullen’s leg and unleashed a bitter oath. Wrapping his good arm around Cullen, he let his adrenaline and equipment take over as he lifted Cullen into the passenger side of the van and shoved him into the seat, slamming the door behind him to make sure he didn’t fall back out. A bullet sliced open his ear and slammed into the van as he did so, and he felt another one impact his side without penetrating his armor, staggering him back from the van and out of the way of yet another bullet. 

Wasting no time, Kaidan ran around the van and to the driver’s side, ignoring the pain in his now-tingling arm as he yanked himself into the driver’s seat. He did have to take a moment to stop the spiral in his brain that was yelling that they should have taken that extra day to scrounge up some Spectre-level armor for Cullen, but he managed to suppress the self-recrimination so he could focus once more on the situation at hand.

“H-here,” Cullen said with a grimace, holding out the keys. “Get us...out of here.”

Kaidan took the keys and fumbled them into place, hearing the bullets hit the van at irregular intervals. Thankfully they’d parked the van so that the back faced the strong house, giving the snipers fewer vectors to hit anything that might stop them from leaving. He did hear a couple of bullets ricochet off the ground as they tried to get the tires, but luck was with them in that regard at least--luck and military-grade, steel walled tires.

Flooring the accelerator, Kaidan gripped the wheel with his good hand and let his HUD and his instincts guide the vehicle. The sniper bullets pinged off the van for another few seconds, then ceased as the van disappeared into the dense forest surrounding the compound. It had taken them two days to route a reliable path through the forest for the van, but a lot of that time had been dedicated to crafting deadfalls to trigger on the way out to discourage anyone from following. It was somewhat satisfying to hear the carefully crafted traps getting activated as they roared past, unleashing piles of branches from nets hidden in the trees above. By the time the van reached the perimeter and the hole they'd created in the fence around the compound, Kaidan was confident that no one was on their trail.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he navigated through the hole, then paused long enough to climb out of the van and run back to collapse the fence completely. As he guided the van to the nearest trail, he puffed air into his cheeks before releasing his breath all at once. “Things got a bit hectic back there."

“More than I’d like,” Cullen replied in a weak voice.

Kaidan glanced sharply at him. Finding Cullen pale and with one hand locked in a hastily twisted tourniquet around his leg, Kaidan asked, “Do I need to pull over and do something about your leg?”

“Not yet. Let’s get a bit farther away,” Cullen said. “I wrapped it well enough to prevent too much bleeding.”

Kaidan winced and glanced down at the blood-soaked tourniquet. “Nicked something?”

“An artery, I think, but thankfully only a nick,” Cullen said through gritted teeth. “You’re going to owe me a few steak dinners, though.”

“You got it,” Kaidan said, trusting that Cullen knew his own body enough that he needn’t worry about the man dying--at least for the moment. “I know a doctor who happens to be nearby.” Not that he’d told Chakwas _why_ he’d be in the Drylands, but thankfully Seleny was on her routine travel list. Hopefully she’d be able to send her other clients away by the time he showed up with Cullen. He stopped the van long enough to send a coded text, then started up again, 

The next few minutes remained tense as he navigated a series of backroads which would take them back to the closest highway. Once he pulled onto the freeway, though, the tension in the van dropped noticeably. It was still only one lane in each direction, but at least it was well maintained with bright lights to guide their way through the night.

“Think we got away clean?” Cullen asked.

“Either that or they didn’t want to send anyone beyond the boundaries of their land,” Kaidan said. “Since we didn’t take anything physical, they might even assume they managed to stop us entirely.”

“That would be the best outcome,” Cullen admitted, and Kaidan looked at him a bit more closely. He recognized the glass-eyed look of a man fighting to stay conscious, and realized that Cullen was speaking mainly to stay awake. “We did what we could to strip anything that could identify us from our equipment.”

“Well, between a former Unseen Hand and an active Spectre, if they can track us after all that we went through to prevent it, we deserve to be tracked,” Kaidan said with a chuckle. “Even our bullets were hand-milled.”

“Did you get hit?” Cullen asked, brow furrowing when he noticed that Kaidan wasn’t using his left hand.

“In the shoulder and the side, but they didn’t get past my armor,” Kaidan assured him. “If you'd had the same armor on, you probably would only have a bruise right now.”

Cullen muttered a heartfelt oath. “I wish I knew what the fuck type of bullets they were using. I know I modified my armor for increased electronic damping, but it still shouldn’t have been _that_ vulnerable to bullets.”

“There's a reason Spectre pours so much money into their equipment,” Kaidan pointed out. "Even then, there will eventually always be a better bullet."

"Don't remind me," Cullen said bitterly. As the car ran over a small pothole in the road, Cullen winced. “So how far is it to this doctor of yours?”

“About an hour,” Kaidan said. “I should re-bandage your leg. You don't want to wear an emergency tourniquet that long.”

Cullen grimaced. “Probably. You still have that--”

“The full kit’s in the back,” Kaidan said as he checked the mirrors to see if any other car was in sight. Finding none, he eased the van over to the side of the road, then further off the road so that they could turn off the lights without worrying about getting clipped by a passing car. “I’ll come around and get you to the back.”

“Right,” Cullen said, leaning his head back against the seat as his eyes sagged shut.

After a minute or so of struggling, since Kaidan’s own injuries had stiffened by now with all the sitting and lack of adrenaline, they were in the back of the van. Kaidan took one look at the injury and grimaced. “The pants will need to come off,” he said as he dug a pair of loose cotton pants from the equipment chest. “The best thing I can do before we reach Dr. Chakwas is to clean it and use a pressure bandage, but I can’t do that around the armor.”

“Do what you need,” Cullen said, reaching out to find grips of his own as he braced for the pain that was sure to come.

Knowing Cullen would prefer that Kaidan just got it over with, Kaidan quickly worked at the fastenings for Cullen’s utility belt, snapping it open so that he could work at the man’s trousers. Ignoring the grunts and grimaces Cullen made, Kaidan tugged the offending clothing off with a minimum of fuss, then reached for the medkit and pulled out the alcoholic swabs. “This is going to hurt more,” he warned, then set to work on cleaning the wound and putting the pressure bandage on it.

By the time he’d finished, Cullen’s face was covered in a sheen of sweat, but he’d managed not to scream or pass out. As Kaidan prodded at the inflated bandage wrapped tightly around Cullen’s leg, he asked, “It’s not too tight, right?”

“No, not at all.” Cullen’s hands slowly released their hold. “Maker, that hurts.”

“You want something for that?” Kaidan asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.

“Better a clear head than one with a bullet in it,” Cullen grated. “No, I’d rather be alert.”

“I think we’re too much alike sometimes,” Kaidan admitted wryly. “Still, as long as you’re not bleeding, I’m going to call this a win and keep driving.” He reached up and shifted Cullen’s body until it was better aligned with the seat, then reached past Cullen to find the seat restraints and latch them into place. “There we go. Try not to move too much.”

“Thanks.” As Kaidan pulled away, Cullen reached out and brushed his fingers along Kaidan’s arm. “Kaidan?”

Kaidan froze in place, suddenly all too aware of how little space was in between them. It stirred memories of the past, and he felt his heart speed up a little as he asked, “Yes?”

“Thanks.” A grin came to his lips as Cullen added, “Just make sure you don’t hit any more potholes.”

Kaidan rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind,” he said dryly. “You still need to stay awake, you know.”

“Prop open the hatch,” Cullen suggested, gesturing at the panel that opened a small window between the driving cabin and the back of the van.

“Right.” Kaidan reached beyond Cullen and tugged it open, thumbing the latch into place to keep it that way. When he pulled back, he glanced down at Cullen only to find their faces once more inches apart. Cullen wasn’t looking at him, though, but instead stared off to one side with a blank expression, as if looking at something that wasn’t there.

“Hey. Cullen.” When the man didn’t respond, Kaiden reached down and cupped Cullen’s cheek. “Come on, stay with me here.”

Cullen’s eyes swam into focus all at once, meeting Kaidan’s gaze with a hard edge of desperation that hit Kaidan hard--and let him know where--or rather _when--_ Cullen had disappeared to for a moment.

“This isn’t the mines,” Kaidan said softly. “You’re not hurt nearly as badly as I was. You’re going to be fine.”

“Just...don’t leave me,” Cullen whispered.

“I won’t,” Kaidan said, then hesitated a moment before adding, “Not this time, anyway. I promise.”

Cullen nodded, locking his gaze with Kaidan's for a long moment--long enough that Kaidan felt a warmth creep up his spine. Finally Cullen took a shuddering breath. “Thank you,” he breathed. As Kaidan started to lean in closer--as he had many times before--Cullen turned his face away. “We should go.”

“We should.” Unable to resist, Kaidan ran his fingers through Cullen’s hair, then backed out of the vehicle and locked the doors tight. As he climbed into the driver’s seat, he launched into a series of questions designed to keep Cullen awake even if they irritated him. It wasn’t the most comfortable ride he’d ever had, but a glance at the widespread blood stain on the seat next to him reminded him that it could have been a lot worse.

Luckily, it hadn’t come to that.

* * *

Chakwas was waiting for them when he arrived, ready to scrub in and perform surgery as needed. After a cursory glance at Cullen and a brief explanation from Kaidan about the suspected injury, she nodded. “Put him on the gurney. I’ll take him back to surgery.”

Kaidan hastily did as directed, then bent over and seized Cullen’s chin in his hand. “I’ll see you when you wake up,” he said, making sure his tone made clear it was an order more than a hope.

“Of course you will,” Chakwas said before Cullen could reply. “Now go to the main room, if you please. I have work to do.”

Knowing better than to talk back when she used _that_ tone, Kaidan watched as Chakwas and her assistant wheeled Cullen into the back room. As soon as they were out of sight, a great weariness washed over him as he took a moment to think about just how _long_ the day had been. Fumbling for his phone, he moved to the outer room and sagged into a chair for a moment before he activated the satellite VPN and made another call.

The call was picked up almost immediately. “Alenko. Thank God. Where the hell are you?”

Kaidan blinked, surprised at the intensity in Garrus’ voice. “Ah, somewhere in the backroads of Antiva. Why?”

“The Council decided to ignore your recommendation to stop pursuing Shepard,” Garrus said, his tone making clear just how stupid a mistake the decision had been

“You mean _Udina_ decided to ignore my recommendation,” Kaidan said, closing his eyes. “He’s always had it in for Shepard.”

“Yeah. Bastard basically convinced the rest of them that Shepard would think she’s safe because you didn’t keep after her, and said this was their chance to strike. So they sent a squad after her.”

“Well, shit.” Too tired for a more emotional reaction than that, he let his head fall back into the wall. “Who’d they lose?”

“Half of the Line Holders,” Garrus said. “The other half decided it wasn’t worth it and haven’t been heard from after they filed their last report.”

“Or Shepard persuaded them, too,” Kaidan pointed out. When Garrus didn’t answer in that oh-so-Garrus way that he knew the truth but couldn’t say it out loud, Kaidan grinned but didn’t press it. “Maybe this will finally be the decision that gets Udina thrown off the Council.”

“Well, I know a few Salarians who would approve of that if he hadn’t just gotten them needlessly killed,” Garrus muttered under his breath. “Anyway, what do you need? I thought maybe you’d seen the news about it. Or at least the small bit they allowed the news to mention.”

Kaidan blinked. “Oh, right. I have a vehicle repair order, and needed your local recommendation for someone near Seleny.”

“Seleny, huh?” Kaidan heard the tap of buttons on Garrus’ impeccably calibrated keyboard. “Is it a rush job? Heavy damage?”

“As rushed as can be managed, but it involves repair for the new A1-5000 vehicular armor,” Kaidan said. “I know there's not a lot of engineers out there rated to fix that yet, which is why I'm calling you.”

“Damn, you don’t make it easy, do you?” Garrus grunted over a flurry of clicks. “Right, I think I got one for you. She’s new to my roster, but you won’t find a better fixit artist for working with the sorts of materials you need. Hell, she might even improve them if you give her time.” There was a cheerful little chirp on the other end of the line. “There, sent you her info. Text only, but you can work out the details with her. And yes, she’s secure, don’t worry.”

Kaidan pulled the phone away long enough to see a text with the name Dagna pop up on his phone, then returned it to his ear. “Got it. Thanks. I’ll reach out to her.”

“How are you doing? You sound tired,” Garrus said bluntly. “And I don’t think I’ve said _that_ since you brought down Sovereign.”

“It’s been a long day, Garrus. I’ll keep in touch.” Quickly he ended the conversation, knowing that Garrus wouldn’t take offense at the abrupt cutoff even if he gave Kaidan a hard time about it later. Quickly he tapped out a brief message to Dagna, then relaxed in his chair for a moment, eyes sagging shut as he let himself relax for _just a moment._

_“Since when do the Spectres work with outsiders on a top secret mission?” Kaidan asked incredulously._

_“Since the ‘outsider’ is one of the most highly skilled operatives working under the Chantry,” Anderson replied in that clipped, brusque tone he used when his underlings were being obtuse. “The Unseen Hand is the closest thing the Chantry has to a Spectre, and he’s the one who first deciphered the internal ciphers of Cerberus--on his own, I might add. Beyond that, he’s a damn good fighter.”_

_“Shepard and I can work on--” Kaidan began._

_“Shepard needs to concentrate on the Sovereign mission,” Anderson said, cutting him off. “The two are connected, but we need Spectres working both sides to find that connection. So I’m assigning you to the Cerberus side for now. You can rejoin Shepard once that threat is gone.”_

_Kaidan gritted his teeth, but also recognized Anderson’s tone of voice: the decision had been made, and nothing he said would change Anderson’s mind. “Yes, ser.”_

_Anderson gave him a pointed look. “I am well aware that Spectres usually work alone or only with other Spectres,” he said quietly, “but this business with Cerberus and Sovereign keeps getting bigger and bigger. Would you rather we kept this in-house and failed because we didn’t have enough eyes and hands working on it?”_

_“Of course not, ser, it’s just that--”_

_“--you like working with Shepard, I know,” Anderson said. “And I know you wanted to work with her until she retired next year. But this takes precedence, and I need someone I can trust to keep an eye on this guy. He’s going to be given access to a lot of things that are usually Spectre-eyes only.”_

_Ah. Now_ that _was a reason Kaidan could accept for assigning him to work with this agent. “Understood. What is his name and current location?”_

_“Cullen, and that’s all we were given. He’s down in the shooting range. Shepard insisted on evaluating his skill if he was going to be partnered with you,” Anderson said. “You should meet him there. By the time you arrive, I’ll have sent the new mission data to your HUD.”_

_“Copy.” Kaidan turned to leave._

_“And Kaidan,” Anderson said. “Don’t let the fact that you’re a Spectre cloud your judgment. This man is dangerous, even to a Spectre. Remain cautious, and concentrate on the mission.”_

_“Yes, ser,” Kaidan said, knowing Anderson wouldn’t give that warning without reason._

_Anderson studied Kaidan’s face for a moment longer, then nodded. “Dismissed, Lieutenant.”_

_As Kaidan walked to the shooting range, he mulled over the idea some more in his head. He’d heard rumors about the Unseen Hand, of course, but he’d previously considered it to be either an exaggeration or a fabrication. But Anderson's made it clear that the Unseen Hand was, in fact, the most elite secret agent serving the Chantry, which implied that some, if not all, of the stories about the Unseen Hand were, in fact, more than mere rumor.  
_

_An intimidating fact, if true, Kaidan admitted privately._ I wonder if his skill will be evident in the shooting range.

_As soon as he entered the shooting range and saw Shepard’s expression, he knew that the Hand--Cullen--had, indeed, impressed her. She glanced at him as he entered, then pointed to a nearby monitor where he could review Cullen’s evaluation. He could see Cullen’s back as he walked to the monitor, but the man had his hands raised, and the muffled blasts indicated he was shooting--and using a rather powerful gun, at that, given how loud the shots were even through the protective headphones Kaidan wore._

_Kaidan moved to the monitor, calling up the last ten sheets for Cullen’s station. The first two belonged to a Spectre, but the third was from only ten minutes ago, so Kaidan expanded the record to view it in its entirety._

_And blinked, stunned by what he saw: a perfect circle of bullets had punched through the card around the heart, with the same amount of space between each bullet as the next. Disbelieving, he flipped to the next record, then the next, and saw the same perfect circle every time, but in different places: around the heart, around the stomach, around the jugular, around an eye._

_This wasn’t just skill. No one could be that good_ and _that consistent. He was starting to understand what Anderson was talking about when he had cautioned Kaidan to be cautious._

_Tapping the screen to monitor Cullen’s active shots, he watched as Cullen shot another circle in the sheet, this time around the stomach. And, this time, he saw why Shepard had worn such an astonished expression. He didn’t shoot a circle by shooting the bullets one at a time next to each other. Instead his hand moved with every shot, shooting a bullet, then a bullet across the circle, before returning to shoot a bullet across the circle again. It should have been a recipe for missing most shots or at least a failure to make the circle itself--but at the end of his magazine, he’d formed another perfect circle._

_Kaidan whistled under his teeth, then looked at Shepard and nodded. She gestured her understanding, then reached out to put a hand on Cullen’s shoulder as he started to reload. As he turned around, Kaidan walked towards them, wondering what the most elite Chantry agent would look like._

_Whatever he might have thought paled before the reality: a strong jaw with stubble, wavy blond hair that would have hung below his shoulders if it weren’t tied back in a low queue, and brown eyes tinged with a faint veneer of blue visible only in Kaidan’s HUD. His body was hard, angular, utilitarian, but also attractive in its own way, despite the evidence of scars that sprouted from underneath his mock-turtleneck and long, tight sleeves._

_But it was the overlay of blue in his eyes that caught Kaidan’s attention and held it._ Lyrium. _It had to be. The drug, impossible to manufacture and nearly as difficult to obtain naturally, was dangerous in the extreme. It could grant almost supernatural physical enhancements, true, but it also shortened one’s life, and became a poison that you had to keep taking or die._

No wonder the Unseen Hands are said to always die in the line of duty, _Kaidan mused._ If their missions don’t kill them, the lyrium would eventually, anyway.

_At Shepard’s signal, Cullen put his gun away into a holster at his waist, which was a signal they all took to remove their headphones. “And you are?”_

_Even his voice was cold, cold and rough, as if he didn’t have much occasion to use it. “Kaidan,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’ll be the Spectre working with you on the Cerberus mission.”_

_For a long moment Cullen looked at him, but finally he nodded and reached out to take Kaidan’s hand in a short, firm shake. “Cullen.”_

Maker, _but the man had a strong grip. Kaidan swallowed._ This is going to be interesting.

_Abruptly his HUD flashed into existence in his eye and sent an alarm without accompanying information. The more he tried to dismiss it, the louder it became, until suddenly--_

\--he jerked awake and looked around before turning his attention to the buzzing, vibrating phone in his hand. _Right. Dagna._ He tapped out a reply, stifling a severe yawn as he exchanged a few texts with her to finalize the details for her repair of the van. Once that was done, he rose to his feet.

Or _tried_ to. During his slumber, every single sin he and the Qunari snipers had inflicted on his body over the last day or so all rose in a cacophonous chorus of muscle pain and slammed him back into his seat with a groan. His shoulder felt like it was on fire, and the pain in his side didn’t really bear thinking about. Setting his phone to one side, he painfully worked at the clasps of his armored vest until it fell open and he could ease it off. It wasn’t much, but it did help him breathe a bit easier.

The next part proved to be far more difficult. After a few aborted attempts to pull his shirt over his head, he gave up and pulled a small knife from a hidden sheath on his thigh and cut the shirt off. He found that he still had limited horizontal movement, but anything trying to reach up was nearly impossible without too much pain. It didn’t _feel_ broken, but...

With his shirt gone, he slowly rocked forward until he rolled onto his feet, then slowly straightened and looked around for a mirror. He finally found one in the little office behind the reception area, then flicked on the lights and tried to determine the extent of the damage.

“Oh, that’s not pretty,” he breathed, taking in the sight of the extensive bruising that wrapped around much of his upper body. Maybe if he’d iced it earlier, it wouldn’t have looked quite so bad, but he’d been a bit distracted. Still, as far as he could tell, there was no actual blood, and a tentative probing of his side demonstrated that although it hurt like hell, there wasn’t any of the particular kind of swelling he’d come to associate with internal bleeding. 

With a sigh, he returned to the waiting room, grabbing his vest and cut shirt on the way to a more comfortable chair than the one he’d collapsed on earlier. Once there, he gritted his teeth as he tried to find a semi-comfortable position, then rolled the vest and shirt into a bundle to lay his head on.

As he drifted off to sleep, he wondered how soon he would be able to see Cullen again. More than anything else, that was what he needed the most.


	4. The Assassin: Lifted Burden

_He woke to warmth, to strong arms wrapped around him as he emerged from the tempting abyss of sleep. He lifted his head to look at the man with whom he’d fallen into slumber, smiling as he reached up to thread his fingers through black hair peppered with the grey of too many days spent on the edge of life and death. Blond hid those greys much more nicely, he mused, sliding his hand down to rest on a chest covered with soft, springy curls._

_In the next moment, the chest rumbled beneath his fingers, sending pleasant vibrations up his arm as Kaidan murmured, “Good morning.”_

_“I think it’s after noon,” Cullen replied with a chuckle. “We had a busy night.”_

_Kaidan grinned as one of his eyes slitted open. “That’s one way to describe it. I’ve never seen you so hungry for my--”_

_A soft kiss from Cullen cut off his comment, and the ones which followed served to wipe away any sense of time. The afternoon passed in a lazy haze of cuddling and kissing, with no word spoken about what_ almost _happened the day before, of all the death and pain avoided through precision and skill. They never spoke of those things, though it was the constant nearness of death itself which fueled their lust and the sudden need for the intimacy which inevitably followed._

_A moment and an eternity later, Cullen’s hands gripped the headboard once more as he rode Kaidan’s cock with a single-minded determination normally reserved for planning a mission into the depths of an enemy’s stronghold. Kaidan’s hands alternated between squeezing his hips and fisting in the sheets, his hips bucking up against Cullen as the heat between them again roared into an open flame._

_By the time he’d collapsed onto Kaidan’s sweaty, messy chest, he felt renewed. Life_ meant _something again, something more than the next breath or the next lyrium-laden cigarette. It meant heat and sweat and comfort and being needed by someone else. He sought Kaidan’s lips with an eagerness which quickly found its match, and for a long moment, they spoke without words emerging from their lips, using their mouths for another purpose entirely as each found beauty in the passion of the moment._

_Soon, they’d rise from the bed to shower and eat. Soon, they would leave the safety of the nest they’d made over the course of the mission to take down the human supremacist cult known as Cerberus. Soon, they would sort through the information yesterday’s mission had given them. Soon, they would charge into the very belly of the beast they had joined forces to take down with the blessing of both Chantry and Council. Soon, there would be another day where their lives would once more depend on them being skilled enough to keep them intact._

_But for now, there was only the heat, and the passion, and the pulse of life which beat between them--even if it was just a dream of a memory._

When Cullen awoke again, he did so with the knowledge that he’d lost time to something deeper than mere sleep. Granted, he’d swam through a dream on the way back up from the depths of anesthesia, but he’d had enough emergency surgeries to recognize what it felt like afterwards. Since his last fuzzy memory involved being wheeled away from Kaidan on a gurney, that, at least, checked out. He became aware of a soft, steady beeping and a distant sense of discomfort in one arm, as well as a feeling of disconnect from his body which he normally associated with strong drugs. 

All of that, along with the deliberate slowness of his thoughts, let him know that the drugs hadn’t quite worn off yet, so he didn’t even try to open his eyes. Instead, he contented himself with listening to the room around him, his mind taking each sound and cataloguing it away in case they became important later.

At first all he could hear was the soft beeping of the machines presumably tracking his vitals, but after a few moments of straining, other susurrations resolved themselves into soft-spoken voices somewhere nearby.

“--very lucky,” a woman was saying. _The doctor?_ “The damage to the muscle could have been much more extensive, given the nature of the bullet. The worst of the injury was the cut to the femoral artery, and that looked worse than it actually was.”

“Thank the Maker.” That voice, roughened with relief and tension held tight, could only be Kaidan. “Did you find the bullet?”

“No, it passed clear through. Judging by the damage on one of the holes, it disintegrated upon exit.”

Kaidan swore softly, a sentiment Cullen shared wholeheartedly. “Too close.”

“Entirely too close, Major. If that bullet had fragmented while still in your friend’s leg, we would be having a very different conversation right now,” the doctor said. “As it is, his recovery can be measured in weeks and not months or years.”

“Weeks?” Kaidan asked, frowning. “We don’t have time for--”

“Two weeks with no walking beyond trips to the bathroom at a minimum,” Chakwas said in a firm tone. “And light duty after that. That is, unless you never want him to fully recover enough to walk again.”

“But--”

“No buts. And he stays here for at least another day so I can monitor his recovery,” she said. “You’re lucky this is one of my regular city clinics. I was able to call in a few favors for special medicine that aren’t usually available without several doctors signing off on it.”

Kaidan sighed, but the sound was more tired than upset. “You’re right,” Kaidan said. “We are lucky, incredibly lucky. Thank you, Dr. Chakwas. I’ll get some more funds wired to your charity as soon as I can.” 

“Thank you, Major.” There was a pause, and then she added, “And I still wish you’d told me about your injuries yesterday.”

“Nothing’s broken,” Kaidan protested. “And Cullen needed you more.”

“Yes, but those bruises…” Chakwas made a little _hmph_ sound. “At any rate, I’ll have ice packs brought for you, and my special concoction I usually reserve for the field to speed up healing. I assume you intend to remain with him?”

“Yes. The van won’t be fixed until tomorrow anyway. Besides, I know what it’s like to wake up alone after surgery,” he said.

“Good. The chair next to the patient’s bed lays flat as needed, and I’ll arrange for food for both of you. Thankfully, this way I can monitor both of you. I know you well enough to know that sometimes you don’t tell me the extent of your injuries.” 

Cullen smiled as Kaidan made small protesting noises, knowing all too well how Kaidan had a tendency to downplay such trivial matters such as his own pain. “Doc, I--”

“Don’t _Doc_ me,” Chakwas scolded him. “You only call me that when you’re trying to tell me why you’re an exception to the rule. Well, you aren’t. And neither is your friend.”

Cullen wished he could have seen Kaidan’s voice as he replied, “Yes, Dr. Chakwas.”

“Now come with me. I have a few more questions before I let you rest,” Chakwas said, her voice already fading as she stepped out of the room. “Like who is the next of kin for my new patient--”

A door clicked, and Cullen realized that he was alone. He let the silence, broken only with the soft beeping of medical equipment, fill his mind for a long moment as he contemplated how his fortune had played him both ways. He wouldn’t be permanently crippled, but at the same time he might not be able to finish the mission with Kaidan--and he didn’t like that thought. They’d _always_ finished their missions together.

Of course, it might be the _after mission_ aspect that he’d miss the most. A flash of the dreams he had before awakening brought a subtle smirk to his lips, and he let the warmth rush over him. It helped bring his mind to full alert, though he noticed that it also tried to bring _other_ parts of him to alert as well.

Ignoring that for now, Cullen concentrated on the simple things first: bending his fingers and toes, controlling his breathing, and focusing on the parts of his body he knew should be in agony as he attempted to gauge how bad it would be when the painkiller wore off.

The answer, unfortunately, reared itself almost immediately: _bad._ He winced in pain as he flexed his injured leg, trying not to mutter a curse as he realized that the doctor was, in fact, correct: he was not an exception to the rule of recovery.

“Cullen? You awake?”

Cullen’s eyes flew open in surprise, since he hadn’t heard the door open. “Getting there,” he mumbled.

“Need anything?” Kaidan’s face emerged from the dimness around him. “Water? Lights? I’d offer more, but that’s about all I can give you for a while. Doctor’s orders.”

“Water would be good,” Cullen said, realizing that his mouth had absolutely no saliva. “Mouth dry.”

“I hate that,” Kaidan said as he moved to the table where a pitcher and a glass were waiting. Pouring a half glass, he brought it back over and cradled Cullen’s head with one hand as he brought the water to his lips with the other. “Doesn’t happen to me every time, but when it does happen, it’s annoying.”

Cullen closed his eyes as he drank down the water, waiting until Kaidan had stepped back before he answered. “It is.” He reached up with his free hand and wiped his face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Kaidan sat in the chair next to his bed and scrutinized him. “You look like you should sleep a bit longer.”

“I feel like it,” Cullen admitted reluctantly. In point of fact, he felt hollow, as if someone had sucked all the energy out of him. Past experience informed him that this would pass in a day or two, but for the moment he didn’t relish feeling as if someone had stabbed him with a straw and sucked. “It’s just hard to let myself, after…” His voice trailed off, not wanting to admit to the fear that lingered yet after what had happened to him before.

Kaidan’s expression softened. “I know,” he said softly. “Don’t worry. I’ll be right here. Nothing will happen to you, I promise. We have the monitors up and everything, and Chakwas told me what to look for to avoid what happened before.”

Cullen’s eyes opened as he stared at Kaidan. “You told her--”

“In general terms, not specific ones,” Kaidan said hurriedly in a low tone as he leaned in close. “Just that you had a reaction to a hospital medicine dosing error, not that it was an assassin who forced the error. As far as she knows, you’re just another Spectre working with me on a job.”

That made Cullen relax. There were only a handful of people who knew of his true past, and he wanted to keep it that way, especially after what had happened to the Divine he’d served. “Thank you,” he murmured, even as his eyes sagged shut again.

He heard Kaidan reply, but he took more notice of the way Kaidan’s hand took his and squeezed. The gesture made him smile just before the blackness pulled him back under.

_“How is he doing?”_

_“Just drive, Shepard,” Cullen shot back through gritted teeth. Most of his concentration was on the man lying on top of him in the back seat of the SUV as Shepard drove them haphazardly towards the city. “How far is it to--”_

_“Thirty minutes,” she called back, even as she pulled a tight maneuver to get the huge vehicle through a gap that shouldn’t have even allowed a bicycle through._

_Cullen looked down at Kaidan’s pale face, then to the blood still seeping through his fingers no matter how hard he pressed down on the wound. “Make it twenty.”_

_“Shit.” He heard Shepard take a breath, then say, “Buckle in. I’ll call ahead and make sure the trauma unit is waiting for us outside the entrance. That will speed things up.”_

_Nodding numbly, Cullen kept his eyes on Kaidan, shifting position to see if his knee pressing from below could help stem the flow of blood. Whatever that monster in the mines had been, Kaidan had managed to hold it off long enough for Cullen and Shepard to get the prisoners out, but the cost had been high. He knew that the Spectres would send field agents back for a post-mission analysis to figure out what Cerberus had done to create such a beast, but for the moment, keeping Kaidan alive had to take precedence._

_Those twenty minutes were the longest in his life, full of tension as Shepard guided the SUV along pathways not designed for cars: sidewalks, over railings, and even up and down several sets of stairs. He had a feeling that the license plate would have several shots taken of it that day, but since that was changed every time the vehicle left the Spectre garage, it wasn’t a great loss. The one-way windows would prevent a trace back to Spectre, at least, and he trusted Shepard not to hurt anyone._

_Thankfully the suspension was built to handle the roughest terrain, or even Cullen might not have survived the trip._

_He didn’t notice as they left the roads of the city through which they’d raced and passed through the heavily armed gate of the Spectre compound. Whatever Shepard must have said in her call ahead, it must have worked since they didn’t even have to slow down for an ID check. As it was, though, they were still almost too late._

_As Kaidan’s labored breathing came to a halt, and what had been pale skin shifted towards ashen, Cullen cried out, “Shepard!”_

_“Almost there,” she said, tapping the control to unlock the doors. “Be ready for them to haul him out.”_

_True to her word, within seconds she’d sent the vehicle into a sharp corner spiral that ended with the door being flung open. Immediately medics were there, tugging Kaidan out of Cullen’s arms and onto a gurney, taking vitals and doing chest compressions as soon as he was in place. Through numb lips Cullen told one of them what he knew of the injuries, but by the time he’d finished his explanation, the gurney and the team of doctors were gone._

_He let Shepard drag him out of the vehicle, which still emitted a regular series of plings and plinks as it cooled down from the hard driving she’d pushed it through. “He’ll be all right,” she said softly. “He’s in the best hands now.”_

_“I know, I just…” Cullen stared at the building above them for a long time. “I can’t go in.”_

_“I can. I'd try to get you in, but they don't allow non-Spectres into the medical unit, not even family. They can't keep me out, though.” Her own eyes were hooded as she looked up at the Spectre headquarters, and he knew she was just as worried as he was, though for a friend rather than--_

_Cullen hurriedly pushed that thought away. It wouldn’t really help to dwell on it, after all. “I should go,” he said. “I have a report to file, after all. There’s things we learned about Cerberus that the Chantry needs to know”_

_“Me, too.” Tapping her earpiece, Shepard added, “They’re already demanding information. Come on. I’ll arrange a ride home for you.”_

_For another long moment he looked up at the building. “You’ll keep me updated?”_

_“I will,” Shepard promised softly. “I know what he means to you.”_

_Since Cullen himself couldn’t express that--wasn’t_ allowed _to, by definition of his occupation--he said nothing in reply. He knew his eyes spoke far more eloquently, though, as they met Shepard’s dark gaze for a moment._

_His heart knew, even if the rest of him had to remain speechless. Unfortunately, the Unseen Hand wasn’t allowed to have a heart._

Cullen’s body spasmed as he jerked awake, the memory of Kaidan’s brush with death merging with his own memories and leaving him a shuddering, sweating mess. In the next moment of consciousness, he noticed an incessant itch in his leg, and fought the urge to reach down and rub at it.

Once his mind and body had been wrestled back into control, he noticed a gentle, familiar snore emanating from the chair next to his bed. A glance showed Kaidan in the chair next to the bed after having pushed it back into a reclining position. Cullen smiled at the sight, letting himself admire the sleeping man as he had so many times before. Dorian might share his bed and warm his heart now, but there had been a time when Cullen had felt the same towards Kaidan.

Or thought he had, anyway.

Cullen reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, pushing the memories away. _Only the present mattered._ Opening his eyes, he found himself lingering for a moment on the strong line of Kaidan’s jaw and fought the urge to reach out and trace it. Taking a deep breath, he moved his hand underneath him so that he could lever himself up, though it took him a couple of tries to succeed.

Now that he was more awake, he looked around the small room and found it to be not too dissimilar from other hospitals he’d been in, albeit smaller. As he prodded his leg and grimaced, the door to the room opened and a woman with grey-lined hair and tired eyes walked in.

“Ah, I see my erstwhile patient is awake,” the woman--who Cullen presumed was Dr. Chakwas--said as she moved to stand next to his bed. Her eyes flickered to where Kaidan still lay slumbering, and when she next spoke, her voice dropped in volume. “How are you feeling? Good enough to sit is promising.”

“Not without effort, but I’m not in pain, at least,” he said.

“Once I saw your blood levels, I was a bit uncertain,” she mused as she studied the tablet in her hand. “How long have you been tapering your use?”

Cullen’s blood grew cold. “Pardon?”

She looked up at him. “You’re not the first person I’ve seen with lyrium in his blood,” she said bluntly. “But you’re the first one who has so _little_ lyrium in his blood and not be dead. How long has it taken to get to this point?”

Cullen swallowed. “Over three years. But how did you--”

“I always scan for it now, after I lost a patient to acute withdrawal a few years ago,” she told him. “It’s a terrible way to die, as I’m sure you are aware.”

_Screams ricocheting off the walls, body convulsing on a bed soaked with the blood that poured from self-inflicted wounds, eyes empty of thought or sanity…_

Cullen shook his head, pushing the memories away violently. “I’ve seen it,” he said in a tight voice.

“Then I don’t need to caution you.” When Cullen didn’t respond, she gave a soft sigh. “You’ve chosen a difficult path, but it is not without merit--as long as you can control yourself.” She glanced at Kaidan. “Does he know?”

“That I use it? Yes. That I’m trying not to? No. No one does,” Cullen said softly.

“Someone should know,” she said. “Someone who knows what to do if the level drops too low too quickly. I don’t know how well you know the Major, but--”

“I’ll think about it.” And, now that he thought about Kaidan, he suddenly realized that Kaidan’s snoring had ceased. _Sneaky bastard._ “What about my recovery, Doctor?”

She took his deflection with grace, turning to tap on the machines so that the incessant beeping came to a halt, though the lines continued. “Other than the leg and the other matter, you’re more healthy than most people I see day to day. Two weeks with only light bathroom and bathing duties, a daily change of dressing, and you’ll be able to get back to light activities.” She gave him a stern look. “But nothing that might end up getting another bullet in you for at least two months.”

Cullen kept his expression bland as he nodded. “Yes, Doctor.”

Chakwas made a disgusted noise. “You’re as bad as a Spectre. Well, I checked your dressing while you were still asleep, and it looks good. The swelling is already down, but given what’s in your blood, that doesn’t surprise me. Just remember it’s only partially reliable for recovery.” She considered him with narrowed eyes for a moment, then said, “But you would know that better than most by now, wouldn’t you? You have a surfeit of scars for someone your age.”

He met her gaze silently. There really wasn’t much he _could_ say to that, which was why he rarely relaxed around doctors, especially ones who had as much experience as Dr. Chakwas. They could see through him all too easily.

“Take care of yourself,” she told him in a gentle voice. “I can tell that you mean a lot to Kaidan, and he doesn’t have many friends left.”

The words settled into Cullen’s stomach and twisted there, his eyes turning to where Kaidan lay in apparent slumber as he waited for Chakwas to leave. Once the door clicked closed behind her, he said softly, “You can stop pretending.”

Kaidan laughed softly as he opened his eyes to look at Cullen. “Old habits die hard.”

“Especially when old habits keep you alive,” Cullen said, finishing their old joke. “I know. How much did you hear?”

“All of it,” Kaidan admitted, reaching down to push the chair back into a normal configuration. “She didn’t tell me, though, just so you know. I’m just a light sleeper.”

Cullen couldn’t help but smirk. “I can remember some mornings where that wasn’t the case.”

“Me, too,” Kaidan replied, but his tone was less teasing and more...well, it wasn’t the sort of tone one used on a man recovering from surgery, that was for certain. “And I remember the nights before those mornings, too.”

Cullen’s mouth went dry as a flood of memories swept over him, triggering a predictable response. Unfortunately, and with little care for his dignity, his first instinct was to blurt, “I don’t think Dr. Chakwas would approve.”

Kaidan’s surprised laugh _did_ made Cullen smile, but both faded quickly as Kaidan said, “I don’t think I’m up to it myself, either. Look.” Standing, he tugged off his shirt and turned around. “Chakwas said it was pretty bad.”

“That’s moderately spectacular, yes,” Cullen observed, reaching up to trace the outline of the extensive bruise across Kaidan’s back. “Not the worst I’ve seen, but it’s got to be damn painful regardless.”

“It is,” Kaidan confirmed. “Luckily I have something that can keep us occupied and _not_ make it worse.” He bent down and retrieved his ruggedized, secure laptop from the ground next to his chair. “While you were asleep, I used your system to decrypt the files we got yesterday. You guessed right, they updated their encryption keys but not the method used to generate them. Took an hour or two, but eventually I cracked it.”

“Thank the Maker,” Cullen breathed. “Let me see.”

They both lost the next few hours as they delved into the data they’d acquired, feverishly working through it to discover not only the location of Shepard’s partner, but also whatever else could be gleaned about both the Qunari and Sovereign, and especially whatever linked them. At one point they came across a familiar name that sent a chill down Cullen’s back. “Wait. Go back to the part that mentions Adaar again.”

Kaidan tapped a couple of keys. “Yes. Salmin Adaar, known to be discontent with the Qun, aided in the escape of his daughter over ten years ago, disappeared about a year ago and...Huh. He was marked for assassination, but the reason for the order is protected in a nested encrypted bundle. Also doesn’t say if the attempt was successful or not. Why?”

Cullen frowned at the screen. “Because a couple of days before you reached out to me, Varric contacted Hawke about a job to go pick up someone on the run from the Qunari. Her last name was Adaar.”

“Her?” Kaidan grunted. “Could be the kid. I wonder how it ties in to everything else.”

“Considering we had to help her escape from a Qunari Infiltration & Extraction team, pretty damn close, I’d imagine.”

Kaidan frowned. “Where is she now?”

“By now?” Cullen quickly calculated how much time had passed. “It’s been a week since then, so who knows? Well, Hawke might know. Or Varric, since he hired us to take care of her in the first place.” 

“Might be worth it to reach out to them,” Kaidan said, raising his head to look at the clock, then squinted. “Is it really after midnight already?”

Cullen mirrored his gesture. “I remember the assistant bringing in some food a while ago.” And somewhere in there Kaidan had helped him use the facilities, which hadn’t been very pleasant but which was _much_ preferred to a catheter. Of course, now that he _knew_ the time, his weariness pressed on him, and he sagged in place on the mattress. “We can figure it out in the morning.”

“Yeah.” Kaidan rubbed his face with his hand. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you up this late.” Sliding off the bed, Kaidan cleared it of all their work materials, then glanced up at Cullen. “Need some help getting comfortable?”

After an attempt to do it himself warned him that it would be too much pressure on his healing leg, Cullen sighed. “Just enough to get me flat again.”

“Copy.” Kaidan leaned in, busying himself as he straightened Cullen’s leg gently before easing him down the bed. Quickly he fluffed the pillow, then lowered Cullen down onto it. Before Cullen realized where that would lead, he found Kaidan’s hand on his cheek and the man’s face inches from his own as Kaidan smiled down at him. “Better?”

“Much.” Cullen stared up into those eyes as the memories surged in his mind once more, fighting the urge to act upon them. When Kaidan didn’t move away, however, a heat awoke under Kaidan’s fingertips and spread over Cullen's face and neck, a flush he was certain Kaidan would notice.

And notice he did.

When their lips met, Cullen let himself fall into the moment--at least at first. It was all too easy to remember how the tension between them, so important to keep them alert while on missions, would turn into undeniable lust afterwards. Hours and nights in each other’s embrace had served a purpose, true: the purpose of remembering the sweetness of life. But it had grown into something else, and when Cullen had finally decided to flee his duties, Kaidan had been the one to aid him.

As their lips parted, though, he remembered what had happened after that, as well.

“Why?” he asked softly. “Why did you leave me when I needed you the most?” His voice was devoid of judgment or anger--he’d left those behind long before. But he _had_ to know.

Kaidan reached up to card his fingers through the long waves of Cullen’s hair. “Because you needed me too much.”

Cullen’s brow furrowed as he blinked in confusion. That certainly wasn’t the answer he’d expected. “What?”

“You were paralyzed, Cullen. You couldn’t go outside without me, you couldn’t decide what to eat. You wouldn’t even shower unless I reminded you. Your fear of what the Chantry might have done to you after you left your position without warning turned the trust between us into a chain that dragged us both down. I tried…” Kaidan’s hand shook as he cupped the side of Cullen’s face. “I tried so hard to help you, but in the end I realized that if I kept trying, we would both end up hating each other, and I _still_ wouldn’t have helped you. So I left before that happened.” A sad smile came to his face. “At least I never ended up hating you.”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Cullen took a deep breath. “I did hate you, for a while,” he confessed. “I couldn’t help but blame you at first, when everything seemed so damn dark. I try not to think about those times, honestly. I hit rock bottom so hard that it broke and I dropped into the Void, or so I thought.”

“What happened?” Kaidan asked softly.

“I found someone who knew how to help me,” Cullen said. “Well, Hawke found him for me, at least. A refugee from an insular cult who’d used his personal trauma to get training so he could heal others. He’s the one who helped me work through my...well, my _everything._ I can’t say he fixed me, but he brought me back to a point where I could at least work on myself again.”

“I’m glad. I’ve always wondered if…” Kaidan pressed their foreheads together. “I’ve never been happier than when I heard you answer that phone,” he admitted. “Even if you sounded grumpy.”

“You caught me at a delicate moment,” Cullen admitted with a wry smile. “I would have been irritated at anyone. It was strange to hear your voice. I thought you’d left me behind forever, Kaid.”

Kaidan smiled at the sound of his old nickname. “No. Or at least, I’d like to think not forever.” He leaned in and stole another soft kiss. “It’s pretty obvious we still work well together. I’m curious to find out how else that still holds true.”

As he tried to claim another kiss, however, Cullen pulled back--or at least didn’t return the kiss with quite the same enthusiasm. When Kaidan retreated with a frown, Cullen sighed and took Kaidan’s hand in his own. “I’ve met someone,” he said gently.

“You--Ah.” Kaidan chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck, looking a bit embarrassed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“No, I didn’t mention him,” Cullen said hastily. “You had no way of knowing. I just never expected us to--” Cullen coughed self-consciously. “Well, I just never expected it.”

Kaidan smiled. “We never expected it before, either,” he pointed out. “But you’re right, it’s not like we can just start where we left off. And I never assumed it would,” he added hastily. “But you were right there, and--”

“And we never needed a reason to ask before,” Cullen said with a chuckle.

“Well, he’s a very lucky man, your...your someone,” Kaidan said with a smile. “And it’s probably a good thing anyway. It’s late, and we’ve got work to do tomorrow.”

Cullen nodded, then reached up to stifle a well-timed yawn. “Speaking of which, give me my phone. I’ll text your number to Hawke so he knows to trust it when you call him tomorrow.”

Kaidan paused in the act of sitting in his chair. “What?”

“To ask him about Adaar,” Cullen reminded him. “To figure out the link between this new Adaar and the Qunari, and if it’s important.”

“Right.” Kaidan tugged Cullen’s phone out of his pack and reached up to set it in Cullen’s hand. “See, you’re smart. That’s what I like about you.”

Cullen snorted as he unlocked his phone and quickly tapped out a short, coded text to Hawke. “You’re saying that now, but just wait until after you’ve had to deal with Hawke for a bit. You might not be so content after that.”

“We’ll see,” Kaidan said with a grin as he collapsed into the chair. “God, I could sleep for a week.”

“Better not,” Cullen warned him. “Sounds like they’re going to move Liara in a week or two.” The words dug into his gut, just another reminder that he wouldn’t be at Kaidan’s side to see the mission through.

“You will still help me, won’t you?” Kaidan asked. “There’s a _lot_ you can do from my bunker that will be able to help me even from a distance.”

“I’m not quitting on you, Kaid,” Cullen said with a grin as he set his phone onto the table next to his bed. “That’s not _my_ MO, remember?”

“Ouch. I felt that.” Kaidan pressed a hand to his chest, then reached down and pulled the release to flatten the chair into a reclined position. “Now sleep. We’ll have plenty of time to catch up later.”

“Plenty of time,” Cullen said with a smile as his eyes sagged closed. _I like the sound of that._ Sleep claimed him easily after that, though whether it was because of his injuries, the hour, or the release of a long-buried anxiety he didn’t know.

When he awoke, Kaidan was gone.


	5. Epilogue: Paths Crossed

_The Soldier:_

The insistent buzzing in Kaidan’s pocket jerked him out of a sound sleep and a delightful dream. Blearily Kaidan registered the time--just after 0600--before staring at the number for a moment in puzzlement. It didn’t pull up an entry in his contact list, but this phone’s number wasn’t listed anywhere, not even in the Spectre registry. Daring to take a chance, he swiped up to answer and put the phone to his ear, speaking quietly out of caution for Cullen’s slumbering state. “Yes?”

“Kaidan?”

His blood chilled. He knew that voice. “Liara?” he whispered, pushing himself to his feet.

“Oh, thank the goddess,” Liara said, sounding unusually anxious. “I don’t have much time, but listen to me: you have to get me out before Saturday.”

Kaidan hurried to the door. “That gives me only two days." He didn't have to say he knew she was in the outskirts of Kont-arr, a Rivaini city still under the shadow of Qunari influence, but from her tone, she assumed he knew.

“I know, I know, but I found out--Oh, it’s too horrible to contemplate,” Liara said with a sigh. “Kaidan, they know you infiltrated the Antivan compound. They don’t know you were looking for me, but whatever other information you acquired has made you a marked man.”

Mind racing, Kaidan eased his way into the hall and shut the door quietly behind him. “What did I get that was so hot?”

There was an odd pause before she replied. “I...I don’t know exactly, but it’s something to do with an apostate they killed over a year ago. Whatever they think you know, it’s enough to put a death sentence on your head. And you know who they’re using to carry out the executions.”

Kaidan’s blood chilled. “Shepard.”

“Please, Kaidan. For all our sakes. hurry.” There was a pause, and then she whispered, “Like a shadow.”

Before Kaidan could reply, the call ended, and he lowered his phone to stare at the screen thoughtfully. Everything had sounded _almost_ like a genuine call--right up until the end.

_Like a shadow._

It was an old code phrase, used between himself and Shepard while on the field. He wasn’t surprised Liara knew of it, of course. Shepard had probably told Liara all the phrases just in case she or Kaidan ever needed corroboration on a Spectre report if only one of them returned from the field. But to hear that one in particular, in this circumstance…

_It’s a trap._

Taking a deep breath, he frowned as his mind raced. If he didn’t show up, Liara would be moved to somewhere in Par Vollen, and he would have lost his chance to extract her from the clutches of the enemy--and Shepard’s best chance to be free from them as well. But if he did go in, especially alone, his chances of emerging alive were minuscule at best.

He needed help--and his best ally couldn’t even hobble to the bathroom without aid.

“Well, shit.”

He nearly jumped when his phone buzzed again, this time with another unknown number. Steeling himself for the worst, Kaidan tapped the button to answer and set the phone to his ear. “Yes?” he asked with even more caution than the last call.

“Is this Kaidan?”

Kaidan’s blood chilled at the unknown voice. A stranger with this number, calling so soon after that call from Liara… “It is,” he said, trying to keep his tone neutral.

“Cullen sent me a weird message saying that I needed to call you,” the man said. “What’s this about?”

 _Cullen sent--_ “Is this Hawke?” Kaidan asked, surprised. “He said he was going to tell you to accept my call, not to call me directly.”

Hawke snorted. “I’m not a very patient man. Besides, I’ve got time now, and I definitely won’t have time once bath time arrives.”

Something about the man's tone made Kaidan’s ears burn, so he pushed past that comment. “Cullen and I have been working on a mission involving the Qunari,” he told Hawke. “And we came across information about a woman named Adaar. Cullen said you’d have more information about it.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the line, long enough that Kaidan started to wonder if the signal had been lost. Finally Hawke said, “All right. Let’s talk.”

After five minutes, Kaidan knew that this was the man who could make the difference between life and death for himself and Liara in the next phase of his mission. It was clear that the man had dealt with the Qunari before, and had intimate knowledge of Adaar and her whereabouts, as well as the reason her father had been marked for death by the Qunari. Despite the man's seemingly glib manner of talking in a jaunty, sideways sort of way, but a careful listener could hear the layered meaning behind the man's words. And, if he worked with Cullen, he’d be no slouch in a fight.

The trick, of course, was in getting Hawke to agree to work with him on such short notice.

Kaidan gave it his best shot, given what was at stake. Luckily, his aim was almost as good as Cullen’s.

* * *

_The Assassin:_

When Cullen awoke to find Kaidan’s chair empty and only a folded piece of paper with his name on it, his world came crashing to a halt for a moment. He teetered on the edge of the same rage and fear and longing he’d felt the last time he’d awoken to find Kaidan gone from their hollow of an apartment. Squeezing his eyes shut, Cullen forced his breathing to slow, to remind himself that _then_ was not _now,_ and that he wouldn’t find the same note or the same sentiment on that piece of paper no matter what.

Still, his hand shook as he reached out to grab the note, and his heart pounded loudly in his ears while his eyes scanned the hastily written message.

Five minutes later, his pulse was racing for another reason entirely. _They were in the endgame._ Quickly he grabbed his phone, then pounded the call button to summon medical assistance even as he shoved his blanket aside. Dr. Chakwas found him cursing at his own inability to stand unaided, and rather than opting for a lecture, she simply turned around and left. Before he had a chance to get upset at her reaction, however, she returned with her assistant and a bundle of his equipment, and five minutes later he was on his feet with a cane to help him walk. She arranged for a special cab to take him to the address in Kaidan's note and helped him into it with only a few words of caution against overexertion--well that, and a bottle of pain pills. He left Dr. Chakwas behind with a veritable pile of his gratitude and a promise not to walk too much in the next few days.

The next couple of days passed in a blur. Tucked away in Kaidan’s trashy-seeming trailer, Cullen found an array of equipment that would have intimidated him had he been anything but a Spectre or the Unseen Hand of the Chantry. Even Hawke would have salivated at some of the items Kaidan had squirreled away in his bunker. After a flurry of closely coded texts and sufficient drags of his special cigarettes to sharpen his mind, he had the entire rig operational and ready for the mission just in time for boots to hit the ground.

And unfortunately for the Qunari, Hawke’s boots could hit very hard indeed.

The ensuing activity ended up making the news, of course. Large scale explosions, even in the remote reaches of northern Rivain, were bound to attract the attention of the media. In the post-mission haze of blue-smoke-tinged bliss, Cullen read the various conspiracy theories with amusement, making notes of the ones which had even a smidgeon of truth to investigate later for leaks before realizing that that would be a job best left to the Spectres.

Especially now that Shepard was no longer a threat to anyone but Sovereign and the Qunari. _They_ , of course, had better find the deepest hole in the ground to cower in, because once Liara was as safe as she could be, Shepard wouldn’t rest until _someone_ had paid for endangering her wife.

Not that the process would be swift. Both Sovereign and the Qunari had plenty of bite left, so both entities would still be around to plague civilization for a while longer. Still, given the way things had turned out, Cullen couldn’t help but be pleased. Liara was safe with her wife, Hawke had returned to base, and Kaidan had told Cullen that he was in the clear to contact his ‘someone.’

Cullen leapt at the chance to call Dorian, sorely in need for the soothing sound of the man’s voice. When he heard the cheerful sound of Dorian’s greeting through his phone, he smiled and closed his eyes as he replied, “Hello.”

“Cullen.” Oh, sweet _Maker,_ how Cullen had missed that. The way Dorian spoke his name sent a shiver down his spine, and it wasn’t even completely sexual. It was just... _home_ \--something Cullen had been thinking a lot about in the last week or so. “You’re safe?”

“Yeah. A bit bruised and battered, but you’ve seen me like that before,” Cullen said with a chuckle. “How are you? I’ve missed you.”

“Oh, enjoying our little retreat in Mae’s winter estate. It was lovely of her to offer a surprise vacation to the entire firm, wasn’t it?” Dorian asked. “Though I’m still not quite sure what prompted it.”

Cullen chuckled, since he knew very well why Mae had all but bullied Trevelyan to take her family and employees to a remote estate in the more fashionable parts of the North. “I’ve heard her brag about it before. Is it every bit as fabulous as she claims?”

“Every bit and more,” Dorian said with a chuckle. “In fact--Oh, hold on a moment.” Cullen strained to listen as he heard Dorian talk with someone nearby, but the sound was muffled, as if Dorian was covering the phone with one hand. The only word he could make out was _boyfriend._ “Sorry about that. A new guest arrived just today, and Mae seemed quite enthusiastic about his arrival.”

 _Kaidan, probably,_ Cullen said with a mental nod. They’d told Mae to keep Trevelyan and her guests safe and sound while Spectre ‘took care of a problem’, and Kaidan’s official credentials had been enough to convince Mae to do so with enviable grace. For safety, she’d agreed to keep her guests at her estate until Kaidan returned and assured her in person that it was all right to let everyone return to the real world.

If they wanted to, of course. Mae’s estate was, according to rumor, beyond fabulous.

“It’s funny,” Dorian said in a musing tone, snatching Cullen’s attention back to the call. “When I went to investigate, it turned out her new guest is an old friend. An old boyfriend, actually, from my university days, for that lovely year Father allowed me to flee the nest and go south.”

Cullen’s jaw dropped, and for a long moment he wondered if it were actually possible. _No,_ he said, physically reaching up to close his mouth. _It couldn’t possibly--_ “Oh?” he asked, keeping his tone light. “Why haven’t you told me all the juicy details?”

Dorian laughed. “Maybe I should,” he teased Cullen, then lowered his voice as if to avoid being overheard. “Riding his cock was my favorite way to pass the time. A pity Father called me back home after that year, though honestly it was probably because he caught a rumor that I was spending all my free time riding my boyfriend’s cock.”

“Does this amazing cock have a name?” Cullen asked, feeling an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach.

“Oh, of course. Kaidan Alenko. He also came from abroad, but I couldn’t tell you from where,” Dorian said. “He’s still as handsome as ever, the devil. It’s unfair, really. I always wondered what path my life would have taken if I’d been allowed to actually stay with him. But then, I wouldn’t have met you, so I suppose I really don’t have anything to complain about.” Even as Cullen sat in his chair in stunned silence, Dorian gave a wistful sight. “Speaking of cock, I miss you. Our anniversary is coming up. You will be home in time for Satinalia, won’t you?”

“Ah...yes.” Cullen shifted in his chair as some very tantalizing possibilities flickered through his mind. “In fact, I think I’ll come up and join you at Mae’s estate. Why don’t you see if you can keep your old boyfriend around until I arrive? I admit to some curiosity.”

“Hmm. By any means necessary?” Dorian asked archly.

For a moment, Cullen forgot how to breathe, so he forced himself to chuckle. “If that’s what it takes.”

Dorian laughed. “All right. But if you arrive and find me riding his cock, you’ll know you took too long. You _have_ been gone for almost two weeks, you know.” 

He _knew_ Dorian wasn’t serious. He _knew_ Dorian wouldn’t actually do that. Yet the treacherous image flashed through Cullen’s mind without hesitation, and it took him a moment to recover enough to speak. “Oh, believe me, I know,” he said fervently. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“You’d better,” Dorian said. “Or else I’ll be forced to--”

The incredibly detailed explanation which followed did nothing to ease the heat rising in Cullen’s body, or lessen the bulge growing between his legs. By the end of it, Cullen cried mercy and let Dorian extract a promise from him that he’d be there at the estate tomorrow or suffer the _or else--_ Or, given the nature of the threat, be there at the estate tomorrow or suffer a total _lack_ of the _or else._ Either way, Cullen had a lot to think about--and, perhaps, an item to add to his Satinalia list.

Hopefully Kaidan and Dorian would both be amenable to a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be honest, I reached chapter 5 with the intent to write the whole saga of Liara's Rescue, and then realized that I'd hit all the emotional points I wanted to cover for setting up Kaidan's and Cullen's past and potential future, and that I wanted to rush to the ending...so I did. _*cough*_
> 
> Also, for the record, Dorian and Kaidan were _very_ amenable, and a Happy Satinalia was had by all.


End file.
